Charlie Wilson’s War
Last night Ian and I stopped at India House for dinner and then went on to see Charlie Wilson’s War. I had been interested because Sorkin wrote the screenplay and Hanks, and Philip Seymour Hoffman are wonderful. (I could tolerate Julia Roberts with that line up).
Well, this a terrific film, and Mike Nichol’s direction has perfect pitch. The movie starts light and fun, but even in the first “hot tub with strippers and blow scene” you begin to get a sense that there is a lot more to this man. As the film moves on the intensity and power increases reflected in also in how it’s lit and the use of the music. Hoffman’s performance is stunning, and Hanks manages to make a womanizing, boozing Texan completely charming. (Given that I am totally sick of boozing Texans — I’m assuming Bush isn’t womanizing because I can’t imagine a woman wanting to touch him — Hanks had an uphill climb with me.)
The critics have slammed the movie for making it this cheerleading, go us, feel good movie without addressing the fact that all those arms and guns we went to Afghanistan went to train Osama ben Laden. All I can say is the critics are idiots and weren’t paying attention. In a number of small ways Sorkin and Nichol’s signal what was coming was brilliant, and the next to last scene has Hanks and Hoffman on a balcony with the CIA guy telling the Congressman “You blew it” while airplane sound whines overhead. You never see the plane, you just hear it. It’s mixed so that the plane and the dialogue hold equal weight.
Was it subtle? Yes. Was that good? Actually brilliant. No, they didn’t rub our faces in 9/11, why should they have to after the past six years of Bush/Republican fear mongering. But the warnings were there of the rise of Islamic terrorism.
I highly recommend seeing this movie.
Melinda
January 13th, 2008 at 10:08 am
I was sitting in the theater in tears, unable to speak, with my friend asking if I was okay, as the credits rolled on this. I think they showed exactly where this whole thing was headed without beating us over the head with it.
I too thought it was brilliant.
January 13th, 2008 at 10:11 am
I haven’t seen the film, and I’m interested in doing so, but I have to say that the criticisms I’ve seen haven’t simply been that it doesn’t address “the fact that all those arms and guns we went to Afghanistan went to train Osama ben Laden.” Rather, what I’ve seen claimed is that the movie completely ignores the roots of modern jihadism in secret American executive-branch hijinks, specifically inside the Carter and particularly the Reagan administrations.
Here’s an interesting piece: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174877/chalmers_johnson_an_imperialist_comedy
January 13th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Thanks for the link, Patrick, I’ll check it out. I hadn’t seen reviews that specifically go after our often times inept meddling in other countries. I think Sorkin, in subtle ways, pointed out the underlying craziness at the CIA. He doesn’t present them as gold plated heroes. The gleeful “let’s kill some Russians” from one of the characters, gets a laugh from the audience but it’s a nervous titter.
You also see how the U.S. shortsightedly just drops Afghanistan after the Russians pull out. Apparently Wilson fought to get some kind of tiny Marshall plan for the country, pointing out that the U.S. had spent half a billion dollars to arm these folks, but was unwilling to put up _one million_ dollars to build schools.
On this topic I can recommend a book called ENDLESS ENEMIES: THE MAKING OF AN UNFRIENDLY WORLD by Jonathan Kwitny. It was published in 1986 so it doesn’t have some of our latest debacles like Iraq, but it is an interesting analysis of what happened in Iran, etc.
January 13th, 2008 at 11:07 am
I saw that movie a few weeks back and thought it was terrific.
The movies that impressed me the most last year were:
Charlie Wilson’s War
Eastern Promises
Atonement
Michael Clayton
In each case, the scripting was top-notch and very intelligent, as was the acting. I hear both No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood are very good, but both sound way too bloody for me.
January 13th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I saw this film on Friday and also thought it was nicely balanced. I absolutely adored Hoffman’s performance. He was nicely placed as the character who gets to say, “The Emperor has no clothes!” It was absolutely heartbreaking to watch Hanks go from the jubilation of the early victories to the sad realization that, as the last quote said, “… we fucked up the endgame.”
January 13th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I went and read the article linked by Patrick, and I found it fascinating, and he makes some excellent points and deepened my understanding of that period and what happened.
I also think he wanted to find fault with the movie and so was harsher than necessary. Having worked in Hollywood I can see several factors at work. I think this got pushed as a comedy because of the failure of Rendition and in the Valley of Elah, etc. (I may have misremembered or misspelled the names of some of these films.)
I also know that Hollywood, for all that the Right rails against it, is very traditional in it’s attitudes and values, and not at all brave or cutting edge.
I felt like the script and the movie were a stealth mission against covert actions, the CIA, how Congress uses and misuses money, and how, as a nation, we lose interest.
I’m glad I saw the film. I’m also glad I read the article.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
“Having worked in Hollywood I can see several factors at work. I think this got pushed as a comedy because of the failure of Rendition and in the Valley of Elah, etc.”
I don’t even know anything about these projects, and yet, just from working in an entirely different part of the entertainment industry, I find those assertions plausible.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
The other “war” movies were very heavy and depressing, and I think the American public was already depressed enough about this ghastly war. They stayed away, and I’ll bet the marketing division at Universal was frantic to find a way to make this seem fun.